Various communication systems support traffic delivery to a given destination over multiple paths. When configured with multiple paths, a network router or switch typically selects one of the paths for each incoming packet. Multiple paths are used for example in adaptive routing (AR), in which packets may be re-routed based on the network state.
Methods for multi-path routing in various network topologies are known in the art. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 8,576,715, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a method for communication that includes routing a first packet, which belongs to a given packet flow, over a first routing path through a communication network. A second packet, which follows the first packet in the given packet flow, is routed using a time-bounded Adaptive Routing (AR) mode, by evaluating a time gap between the first and second packets, routing the second packet over the first routing path if the time gap does not exceed a predefined threshold, and, if the time gap exceeds the predefined threshold, selecting a second routing path through the communication network that is potentially different from the first routing path, and routing the second packet over the second routing path.
U.S. Patent Application Publication 2012/0144064, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference, describes a dragonfly processor interconnect network that comprises a plurality of processor nodes and a plurality of routers. The routers are operable to adaptively route data by selecting from among a plurality of network paths from a target node to a destination node in the dragonfly network, based on network congestion information from neighboring routers and failed network link information from neighboring routers.
As another example, U.S. Patent Application Publication 2012/0144065, whose disclosure is incorporated herein by reference describes a dragonfly processor interconnect network that comprises a plurality of processor nodes and a plurality of routers. The routers are operable to route data by selecting from among a plurality of network paths from a target node to a destination node in the dragonfly network based on one or more routing tables.